Recent advances in the fields of dentistry, medicine, and veterinary medicine necessitate functional and efficient implementation of therapies during exploratory and restructuring procedures. Approaches of interest combine efficiency and esthetics with the inherent utility of the investigative area. Of specific interest is the arena the dental root canals that while rapidly increasing in volume throughout the world have lagged in gaining concerted integration of recent scientific advancements.
When performing root canals it is desirable to efficiently debride or render harmless all tissue, bacteria, and/or viruses within the root canal system. As shown in FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B (FIG. 1B is a simplified representation of FIG. 1A), a tooth root 5 of the root canal system includes the main root canal 1 and all of the accessory or lateral canals 3 that branch off of the main canal 1 generally towards the jaw bone 7. Some of these accessory canals are very small and extremely difficult to reach in order to eliminate any bacteria and/or viruses. Such accessory canals 3 may bend, twist, change cross-section and/or become long and small as they branch off from the main canal 1, making them very difficult to access or target therapeutically.
The accepted dental procedure is to mechanically pull out the main canal nerve 1 thereby separating it from the accessory canal nerves 3 (which stay in place) then filing out the main canal 1 with a tapered file. This action leaves an undesirable smear layer along the main canal 1 and actually plugs some of the accessory canal 3 openings, which potentially trap harmful bacteria or other harmful maladies. This is very undesirable. The dentist must chemo-mechanically debride both main 1 and accessory canals 3, including the smear layer produced by the filing. Often this is done with a sodium hyperchlorite solution and various other medicaments that are left in the root canal system for 30 to 45 minutes. This current methodology does not necessarily debride or render harmless all of the accessory root canals 3 because of the difficulty in first cleaning off the smear layer then negotiating some of the smaller twisted lateral canals. As a result many treatments using this method fail over time due to reoccurring pathology. This often requires retreatment and/or sometimes loss of the tooth.
Therefore, there is a present and continuing need for new and improved dental, medical, and veterinary procedures that address the above problems.